Screen test: Edgbaston spells out the Test case for compelling TV

I have been watching the Test cricket these past few days and thinking about the ICL, IPL, EPL, TCL and all those other Twenty20 competitions that spell the END, if not of civilisation then of the game we love.

I have been thinking: what makes better television? A mindless sequence of blows by an endless array of overpaid sloggers against bowlers who are trying to avoid the stumps as much as the willow? The monotonous predictability of it all, even when ostensibly the contest is close and supposedly thrilling? Or any of the following?

Eye on the ball: the perceptive comments of Mike Atherton were quickly being picked up by Test Match Special and the umpire

Freddie Flintoff roaring in like a vintage Ian Botham (or Flintoff, for that matter) as he did in the humid gloom of last Thursday evening; the unsighted South Africa batsmen fearing for safety as much as their wicket; Paul Collingwood hitting a six to reach an emotional comeback 100; Kevin Pietersen holing out when trying to reach three figures by clearing the boundary; the very essence of a captain’s innings by Graeme Smith and his lengthy duel with Monty Panesar.

Test match cricket is Kenneth Branagh playing Hamlet; Twenty20 is Barbara Windsor’s bra flying off in Carry on Camping. Oh all right, more people would probably prefer to see the latter and Test matches are not always as tense and dramatic as the latest one at Edgbaston.

‘This is a terrific game of cricket, is this,’ as Sky Sports commentator David Lloyd said in his inimitable fashion. ‘This is some battle,’ Michael Holding declared.

‘It’s hard work supporting this England cricket team,’ Nasser Hussain commented as early as the second ball of the day and the departure of Tim Ambrose. ‘It goes one way then the other. Your spirits are lifted and… ’

He never did finish that sentence. Events eventually finished it for him. But don’t tell me that even the deflation of an England defeat could destroy what was terrific sporting viewing, the best of the summer apart from the Wimbledon final between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer. And Sky Sports do it so well.

Come Saturday, the great sightscreen mystery had deepened to such an extent that Messrs Gower, Hussain and Botham had decanted from the studio to the pitch itself for a closer look at what the South African batsmen were seeing, or rather not seeing. No one had a clue, not even Michael Atherton.

It was Atherton’s turn to be Third Man, the in-depth analyst for the day. Less Third Man than The Man. One minute he was highlighting the deficiency of Monty spinning the ball only one way, the next minute Test Match Special on BBC Radio Four were saying the same, almost as if, in a neat reversal, they had been listening.

Atherton (or one of his helpers) then spotted Monty had been getting away with a series of no balls. He mentioned it and in the next over Aleem Dar no-balled Panesar twice, almost as if he (or one of his helpers) had been listening.

As good as the cricket was to watch, Geoff Boycott is always worth listening to. ‘If I had even thought about it, let along actually trying it, I would have slit my wrists,’ Boycott told Five Live when discussing Pietersen’s dismissal.